Rackspace

Here is why RackSpace is fun: Imagine you want to book a rental car in the USA via the internet. Your browser recognizes you are from Germany and Hertz charges you 10% more. What do you do? Go to http://manage.rackspacecloud.com and provision your own computer in the cloud. There you start a firefox and book your car from a US location. Here is how:

• provision a Ubuntu 10.10 server

easy click-through on http://manage.rackspacecloud.com

• on the server, install a VNC server with a usable environment

cat >>/etc/apt/sources.list<<EOF
deb http://ubuntu.mirror.cambrium.nl/ubuntu/ maverick main multiverse
EOF
apt-get update
apt-get install tightvnc-java
apt-get install tightvncserver
apt-get install xterm
apt-get install twm
vncserver -httpport 80

• on your desktop, connect to the server. Let's assume the IP is 50.46.24.201:

vncviewer 50.46.24.201:1